


Birthday in Paris

by AzimuthZero



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea, Gen, Post-Canon, father-daughter fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzimuthZero/pseuds/AzimuthZero
Summary: It's her eleventh birthday, and Anna Dewitt wants a puppy.Booker receives an unexpected visitor in the night.A lighthearted Paris happily-ever-after with a bit of a twist.
Relationships: Booker DeWitt & Anna DeWitt, Booker DeWitt & Elizabeth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Birthday in Paris

_ Shattered glass crunched under his boots, grinding like gravel over once-pristine cobblestones. He ran past boutiques and bakeries with smashed windows and missing doors, gagging on the stench of burning tar and oil. His palm throbbed beneath purple bandages crusted black with his own blood, but he only gripped the revolver tighter as the sounds of angry yells and gunfire carried to his ears from down the street. With a gust of blistering wind, a bullet whizzed by his ear and dinged off a nearby lamp-post. _

_ He threw himself behind an overturned carriage and paused to catch his breath. _

_ “After him!” came a bellow. _

_ “For the Prophet!” yelled another ragged voice. _

_ More bullets impacted the wood of the carriage roof, sending up a shower of splinters. His lungs burned. His legs ached. His heart felt on the verge of bursting. Clenching his jaw, he rose from his crouch, sighted down the barrel of the hand cannon, and fired. The head of a soldier halfway down the street snapped back with an explosion of blood and brain-matter. Another immediately took his place. _

_ His heart sank. There were so damn  _ many  _ of them. _

_ He squeezed the trigger again, only to hear the click of the hammer striking an empty chamber. More bullets cracked around the carriage, some passing dangerously close to his head. He ducked back for cover, breathing hard. _

_ A dull panic rose in his chest. Did he lose her? _

_ “Booker, catch!” _

_ His head snapped toward the voice. Almost on instinct, he threw down the revolver, raising his hands to receive the pistol arcing through the air. _

_ There she was, pressed into the shadows of a doorway on the other side of the street, raven hair framing a face marred by innumerable scars and wide blue eyes—eyes that should never have seen the things they’d been forced to see in the past twenty-four hours. _

_ A pang of guilt stabbed at his stomach at the memory of all the times he had lied to her. _

_ A surge of rage rose at the memory of the wicked instruments in that tower. _

_ Letting out a roar of pain and effort, he focused the energy into his hand, watching the fingers glow with burning embers. He could feel the salts bubbling through his veins like molten lead. He tossed the ball of fire and hate toward the advancing soldiers, waiting for their screams of panic before popping above the carriage and opening fire into their ranks. _

_ He had to kill them all. It was the only way to save her. _

_ “Dad, what are you doing?” _

_ He froze at the words. _

_ “What… what did you call me?” _

“Wake up, Dad!”

Booker Dewitt’s eyes cracked open to soft afternoon light streaming in from the windows. Instead of the broken streets of Columbia, he found his body cradled in the cushions of an armchair. It took a few moments for the gunshots to stop ringing in his ears.

“You’re bleeding.”

A familiar face leaned closer, younger than he expected, filling his vision with concerned blue eyes. A handkerchief moved to dab at his nose before he had the chance to push it away.

“I-I’m all right.” He takes the girl’s— _ his daughter’s _ hand gently. “I’m fine, Anna. Just dozed off for a moment.”

“Was the news really that boring today?” Anna laughed, leaving the handkerchief in his hand to pick the newspaper off his lap and start flipping through the pages.

“Hey, shouldn’t you still be at school about now?” Booker admonished teasingly.

“School ends at  _ quatre heures de l’après-midi _ , remember?”

“Well, your French has always been better than mine,” he chuckled, pulling Anna onto his lap.

She was turning eleven tomorrow; she was getting too big to fit on one knee. The roundness of her childish features was already giving way to hints of the woman he shouldn’t remember.

He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the apartment. Had he really fallen asleep for an entire hour?

“I was supposed to pick you up today,” he said, placing a hand on Anna’s shoulder and fixing a wrinkle in her white summer dress with his other. A hand upon which should— _ would _ have been branded her initials, but wasn’t. Would never be. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s no trouble, Daddy,” she mumbled back, her eyes still scanning over the newspaper. “Jacques walked me back.”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with this Jacques fellow, haven’t you?” Booker asked playfully, ruffling Anna’s hair until she reached up to pull his hand away, fixing the bow in her ponytail with an indignant scowl.

“He’s very interesting. Did you know he wants to be a scientist when he grows up?”

“Hmm.”

“I think it’s a good fit for him. He’s very smart.”

Booker chuckled again, toying with the idea of starting a little personal investigation on the boy. Anna was much too young for the dating scene yet, but if anyone was spending time around his daughter… well, a little extra scrutiny couldn’t hurt.

“Coming from you, that’s a mighty fine compliment.” He reached around to touch Anna on the tip of the nose. “Bet he hasn’t read nearly as many books as you, though.”

“I don’t think he likes the same books I do.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame.”

“Dad! You can’t say that word.”

“No,  _ you  _ can’t say that word. It’s a nasty word reserved for cranky old people. Like me.”

“That’s hardly fair-”

Pulling her closer, he tickled her sides until her rebuttal was drowned out by tinkling laughter. Her closeness made everything feel safe and warm. It was a while before he let go of her again.

“What do  _ you _ want to be when you grow up?” he asked gently.

Anna shifted in Booker’s lap until she was facing him.

“I want to be a detective, like you!”

Booker shook his head slowly.

“No, you don’t. A girl as smart and talented as you shouldn’t be stuck in this boring gig.”

The corners of Anna’s mouth twisted down in a slight frown. “I thought you liked your job.”

“When you get to be as old as me, you’ll realize  _ like _ is a strong word. I’m good at what I do, and it keeps the lights on.”

_ It does now, at least. _

Booker pushed down the bitter thought, sealing back echoes of dark nights in New York City spent staring at the bottom of a bottle, so desperate for money he’d been on the verge of selling his own daughter. He was deplorable, despicable. A monster, no better than Zachary Comstock, only Booker Dewitt had been far more piteous.

That final night, he’d woken from his drunken stupor with a nosebleed and nineteen years worth of fragmented,  _ impossible _ memories.

“A writer, then,” Anna said, a pensive hand to her chin. The clouds parted from Booker’s mind at the sight of her beautiful, sun-kissed face. There wasn’t, would never be a Comstock here. “I want to travel the world and find stories to tell people!”

“A writer, huh?” he mumbled.

He looked toward Anna’s bed at the corner of the apartment, surrounded not by walls but shelves upon shelves of books. Every coin he managed to shave, he saved for the books, because  _ she’d _ loved books. As much as he told himself that his daughter wasn’t, wouldn’t ever be  _ her _ , he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

And even without the tower, Anna came to love them just as much as Elizabeth did.

“Constants and variables.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“Nothing important, sweetie.” He shifted his daughter’s weight until it was more comfortable on his knee. “Say, it’s your birthday tomorrow. You still haven’t told me what you wanted.”

Anna’s mouth quirked in thought.

“I want a puppy,” she blurted suddenly.

By her nervous expression, she probably thought her father would refuse; and for the briefest of moments, Booker considered refusing. To say that moving to Paris had been a financial burden would be the understatement of the century. Even after five years, he was still barely managing to pay the rent. A dog would only complicate things.

“What kind of puppy?” was his actual reply.

Then Anna was smothering him in a hug, babbling about breeds he’d never even heard of before. He grinned from ear to ear despite himself.

This girl would be the death of him.

_ No _ , he corrected,  _ not this time. _

* * *

The paperwork was lighter than he expected. The dog was heavier than he expected. But the look of pure joy on his daughter’s face at the sight of the equally excited puppy bounding into her arms was exactly like he imagined.

“What do you want to name it?” he asked on the way home, awkwardly tipping his hat to passers-by while cradling the dog in his other arm. Anna practically hung from his elbow as she skipped alongside him, not wanting to miss a single moment with her new best friend. The ladies on the street pointed and giggled, some of them throwing compliments of  _ cute girl, cute dog  _ in his direction.

Anna’s dark eyebrows pressed together as she considered the question long and hard.

“Marius. Like the boy from  _ Les Misérables _ .”

“ _ Les Mis _ , huh?”

“You’ve read it, too?”

“No, no.” Booker’s laughter faded as he looked to the Eiffel Tower, painted in gold by the morning sun. “I know someone who did, though,” he said in a quieter tone, half to himself.

“Do I know them?” Anna looked confused.

“I don’t think so.”

He reached over to ruffle her hair, his fingers lingering to scratch the puppy’s short fur. It was a bulldog, or so the woman at the pet store had told him. Apparently, they made for excellent guard dogs when they grew to full size.

“Marius. I like it,” he said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.  _ Better than Songbird, that’s for sure. _

The puppy licked at his fingers, and he let it.

* * *

Summer was rapidly lengthening the days, and night fell later than Booker was used to. The extra hours of sun seemed to go straight to Anna’s already-boundless energy reserves, and it was well past eleven before he could convince her to settle down to bed. He didn’t want the dog to sleep with her, but she was quite insistent.

“If it soils the sheets, that’s for you to clean up,” he relented with a huff.

“Marius will be good, I promise,” Anna cooed, curling around the ball of fur that had already tucked itself into the crook of her stomach. “Won’t you, boy?”

She giggled as the dog gave her a drowsy lick on the chin.

Booker put his hands on his hips.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” But he couldn’t keep the fondness from seeping into his tone. Brushing aside the bangs covering Anna’s forehead, he leaned down and planted a soft kiss. “Goodnight, little bird.”

“Goodnight, Daddy.”

As he closed the door on the apartment, he glanced back one more time at his daughter’s motionless form, noting the telltale bump of the novel tucked under her pillow. He smiled to himself.

The stairwell was deathly silent save for the sounds of his own footsteps. He was the only one who worked this late at night in the building. He was the only one who worked weekends. As he turned the key to the back entrance to his office, he thought back to the other office across the ocean. Sitting down behind the bureau, he gazed toward the moonlit door, tracing mirrored letters through the frosted glass.

_ Booker Dewitt _

_ Investigations into Matters Both Public and Private _

He wondered if the loan sharks ever found that office. He wondered if they were still looking for him. He wondered how long it would take before Anna was truly safe.

Letting out a long sigh, he snapped his fingers and touched the burning tips to the half-spent candle at the corner of the desk. After a quick glance over the haphazardly scrawled notes covering the desktop, he pushed the papers aside and pulled out the latest case files from the top drawer, uncapping a fountain pen with his teeth.

These days, his work seemed to involve more polite daytime inquiries about the state of legal documents than shady midnight meetings with questionable informants, but he’d be damned if all this paperwork wasn’t just as draining. The tip of the pen scratched faintly in the deep quiet of the night, filling in dates, names, ledgers, details…

A spot of red splattered across the page, glistening in the candlelight. He touched his fingers to his nose, and they came away wet.

The sound of heels on hardwood drifted to his ears through the darkness. He put down the pen.

At first, she was a silhouette against the dimly lit window. Candlelight illuminated a crisp white blouse and lips as red as blood. Two steps away from his desk, she stopped, raising a delicate eyebrow as she fixed him with striking blue irises.

“Mister Dewitt.”

“Elizabeth. You ever heard of knocking?” he growled.

The woman glanced around the office, folding her arms over her chest.

“You look like you’ve been busy.”

“Well, raising a kid’s a lot of work.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “She turned eleven today. She wanted a puppy, you know.”

“Constants and variables.” There was a faraway look in Elizabeth’s hooded eyes.

“Something like that. What’s with the dress?”

“Another Comstock. 1959.”

“What happened?”

Elizabeth shrugged.

“I killed him. Then I was beaten to death by an angry Irishman.”

Booker blinked.

“You died?”

“Not yet.”

“What does that…” He shook his head. That line of inquiry never helped his sanity. “Nevermind. Look, I’m sure you didn’t come here to catch up with a man you’ve never met.”

Elizabeth leaned forward on the desk, the candlelight gleaming off her raven curls and casting her pale face into flickering shadow.

“You know why I’m here, Mister Dewitt.”

Booker leaned back in the chair until it creaked.

“Another one of your edge cases?”

Elizabeth gave a single nod.

“A Comstock without a Columbia.”

A furrow formed in Booker’s brow.

“But that’s impossible. There’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man-”

“And there’s always a city.”

A postcard landed on the desk, pushed toward him by slender fingers tipped with glossy red nails. His eyes widened.

“I can’t leave Anna,” he murmured. “You of all people should understand that.”

“You won’t be leaving her. You never do. Don’t you trust me, after all this time?”

Booker chuckled mirthlessly.

“I feel like I trust you less every time I meet you.” He reached down to the lowest drawer and dragged it open. His fingers closed over the worn grip of the revolver pistol inside. “But then again, I never really have a choice, do I?”

“You should know better than to ask  _ that _ question by now, Mister Dewitt.”

He took a deep breath. He stood, pulling his jacket over his shoulders and stuffing the gun inside. A box of bullets went into his back pocket. He was halfway through combing for his favourites among the stashed bottles of vigors at the back of the drawer when a light touch on the back of his hand stopped him.

“We won’t be needing those this time.”

There was a mischievous glint in Elizabeth’s eyes. Booker raised an eyebrow.

“If you say so.” Sliding the drawer gently shut, he walked to the door. He could hear Elizabeth’s heels following behind him. His hand froze as it came to rest on the cool metal of the handle. “I’ve missed you, Elizabeth.”

There was a pause. A sigh.

“Me too, Booker. Just like old times, huh?”

A low chuckle.

“Like that’s supposed to make any sense.”

The door swung open, then shut just as quickly, leaving the postcard of the Empire State Building resting by the still-burning candle atop the document-strewn bureau. ****

**Author's Note:**

> So I just played _Bioshock: Infinite_ for the first time. Two truths are now present in my soul:
> 
>   1. I am in love with Elizabeth
>   2. I am terrified of Elizabeth
> 

> 
> This one-shot tries to capture my weird multiverse headcanon for Booker, Anna, and Elizabeth after the events of _Burial at Sea_. My logic goes:
> 
>   * The fact that one Comstock was able to escape the cycle meant there must be more. Infinitely more. That’s how infinities work, after all.
> 

>   * How will Elizabeth clean up all these edge cases? Most, she finishes off herself, like in Burial at Sea. Sometimes, however, she needs a little help…
> 

> 
> Cue a time-jumping noir/buddy cop adventure with Booker and Elizabeth as they tear through space and time on an infinite quest to end the last Comstocks.


End file.
